Unmute
by Clumsy Robot
Summary: Stanley thought to himself that throughout the history of his life, he had never heard a voice quite so annoying.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Recently I've been playing The Stanley Parable, and it's become one of my favorite games. The writing and story of the game appealed to me so much that I involuntarily ended up writing fanfiction for it, no matter how hard I tried not to...

* * *

><p>In the room was a single lamp, and it flickered dimly as if being choked. There was a computer monitor: large, pale, blocky. There was a coffee mug and a collection of pens and pencils, scattered about the desk with no sense of order and reason. Some of the pencils sat under stacks of assorted papers with words printed on them. Stanley had the entire layout of the place committed to memory. After all, he worked there every day of every week of every month of every year. There was no reason not to.<p>

This was Stanley's office, and Stanley relished every square inch of it.

Watching the computer monitor carefully, he pressed one button after another, letting lines of pixellated white text flow across the screen. A sudden spur of inspiration reached him, and he pressed a particularly complicated sequence of buttons. The monitor blipped, and Stanley smiled proudly. He liked his job even more than he liked his office.

Someone tapped at the office door.

The electrical buzzing of the lamp faltered as the light dimmed yet again. Stanley made a mental note to mention this at the next meeting. Having an inconsistent light just wouldn't do.

Hearing no response, the person at the door opened it anyway and stepped in anyway.

"427," a woman's voice said dryly. "Your monthly report."

Stanley turned to face the woman and nodded. He tried to communicate some kind of emotion in his eyes, something subtle, maybe, so that he would seem friendlier. The woman's name was Mariella and he wanted to be on good terms with her. It was important to get along with your employees, Stanley thought. An overarching sense of community was vital to the success of the company.

Mariella marched over to his desk and handed him the papers. Inwardly, she squirmed as she watched Stanley flip through the papers; the silence was uncomfortable.

The background noise seemed to grow louder as the time ticked on. Stanley finished skimming the papers. He took out a pen and notepad. Mariella wondered how long she was obligated to stay there. She cleared her throat. "Ahem."

Suddenly, a dry voice appeared out of nowhere and filled the room, sounding exasperated. "Mariella cleared her throat in a painfully inadequate attempt to ward off silence, something which she had been taught since childhood to avoid," it said. "Possibly she is under the illusion that she could engage in intelligent conversation with Stanley. She has not yet realized that Stanley is really really stupid and probably only got his job through a family connection, that's how stupid he is..."

Reflexively, Mariella turned on Stanley. With an accusing and half-bewildered look on her face, she said, "I thought you couldn't talk."

Stanley gave her the universal "well duh" look, hoping that his message was coming across. Judging from the confusion on Mariella's face, it wasn't.

"Spot on, Mariella," said the voice. "You're right. The corporeal being with whom you're interacting, in fact, is not able to talk. Needless to say, this has caused quite a few problems in his daily life. Please let me dispose of this regrettably stupid individual and allow me to follow you around instead. Compared to Stanley, you are practically a Nobel Prize winner."

"What?" said Mariella.

Stanley thought to himself that throughout the history of his life, he had never heard a voice quite so annoying.

Whatever Stanley couldn't communicate with words, he made up in facial expression. Upon hearing the voice's last words, he winced as if he had just witnessed something so embarrassing it wasn't even funny. He got up from his chair and motioned for Mariella to leave, practically pushing her out the door. The moment she had stepped outside the office, a large BANG reverberated behind her in a way that left her eardrums ringing. The door to Room 427 had shut.

Damn.

A few seconds, thought Mariella. A few seconds to catch my breath... Okay, okay. Everything is fine, she thought. Nothing is wrong.

She wasn't surprised so much as bewildered. The dry British accent she had heard certainly wasn't 427's voice. Where had it come from? Perhaps she had just imagined it - but no, Stanley had acted as if he'd heard it, too. Maybe they were both crazy.

Too many questions. Instinctively, Mariella decided that everything would be so much better if she just forgot to think about.

In an effort to preserve her peace of mind, she immediately contacted the bright white facility downstairs. An hour later, she was relieved when she found that she could no longer remember anything about the strange event that had occurred. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she walked calmly to the employee lounge, hoping to grab a cold drink and chatter with her colleagues. Everything was fine, she thought. Everything was fine.

* * *

><p>Stanley shut the door while wearing a sour expression that twisted his face to the point that it looked slightly ridiculous. The voice, finding it all mildly amusing, prepared to comment on it, but Stanley cut him off with a stern glare.<p>

With the pen and notepad he had taken out earlier, Stanley began to doodle a cartoonish picture of a pencil. He had never been good at drawing, but it gave him something to do with his hands as he silently fumed.

"..." he said.

"Please, Stanley. According to current societal standards, that was fairly rude of you. Throwing poor Mariella out of the room like that? Hmm, Stanley, that certainly isn't very civil."

"..." said Stanley.

The voice paused for a moment, considering. "Are you honestly worried about the impression that I made on your fellow female employee? She's probably filed a report to the Mind Control Facility right now. Soon, she won't remember anything related to this event."

"..."

"Stanley thought several derogatory phrases and it's fortunate he isn't able to say them out loud."

"..."

"Admitting defeat, Stanley turned back to his computer monitor and continued on with his job. ...no! You're not still drawing those inane pictures just to spite me, are you?"

* * *

><p>It was getting late. Stanley had the lingering feeling that he should probably be at home right now. He would have left, too, if he remembered where it was. He was sure he lived in an apartment somewhere, near the company building where he worked. For some reason, the address was just blurry in his head, too blurry to make out. It was safer just to stay in his office, Stanley decided.<p>

The voice had been quiet for the past several hours, letting Stanley continue on peacefully with his work. Stanley cherished these moments. Life was so much simpler and so much better when everything could be narrowed down to himself, the monitor, and the buttons.

Inevitably, though, the voice always spoke up. It could never be quelled entirely, Stanley thought. Even when it wasn't talking, he still had the peculiar sensation that somebody was following him.

"It had reached an unseasonably late hour," the voice said suddenly. "Stanley decided that it would benefit his life to an important degree if he were to return to his apartment instead of working for the entire night."

Stanley's eyebrows fell in an expression of annoyance.

"Are you listening to me, Stanley? Let me repeat: Stanley decided to return to his apartment and sleep for seven hours before returning to work the next day."

"..."

"Half of your coworkers have already left, Stanley. Unlike you, they have their own families and their own lives to attend to. But our voiceless protagonist Stanley is literally sitting here, dedicating his entire life to the job."

"..."

"Stanley suddenly felt a desire to stop the job from controlling his life. He got up, put on his jacket, and went to Apartment Number 427 where he would then receive an adequate amount of sleep."

At last, Stanley got up and reluctantly threw on his jacket. He didn't want to go to sleep, but the voice was annoying him to a point where he couldn't stand it anymore. Stifling a yawn, he ventured into one of the main office rooms, where several of his coworkers were sitting at their cubicles. They were still working. That was unfair.

"Don't be cross, Stanley. The story that I'm telling was, in fact, intended to benefit you all along..."

Darkness closed in on him as he walked out of the company building. He could navigate the route from the company building to his apartment without thinking. Every day of every week of every month of every year, the voice made him stop his work and go home. No matter what he did, the voice was always there. It was strange, thought Stanley, that none of his other coworkers had voices of their own.

The last thing he heard before he turned out his bedroom light was the voice saying, "Good night, Stanley."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: In which this story begins to show some semblance of plot.

. . .

He was surrounded by a darkness so thick that closing his eyes made no difference. There was nothing in front of him, nothing behind him. His consciousness floated, aimless. Surrounded by dead space. Did he have a body? Was he alive?

Maybe he had been buried, long ago, and grass was growing on his grave.

He didn't know what to do, so by sheer reflex he mumbled a single syllable. "Um."

With a start, he realized that in this world, he had a voice. He could talk!

Minutes passed. He felt dizzy with a strange sort of anticipation that he could not explain. He was waiting for something; certainly, he was waiting for something.

"Hello, Stanley."

Yes. It was that voice. The voice that had been saying hello to him, every day, of every week, of every month, of every year…

"Um," Stanley said. "Hi."

The voice made an exaggerated show of feeling insulted. "Just 'hi'? That's all? Not even the courtesy and time and effort of the two-syllable 'hello'? You're being lazy, Stanley."

"…" said Stanley.

"There you go, saying nothing again. Stanley had always learned not to speak up…"

"I'm dead, aren't I?" The question sprang from Stanley's mouth of its own accord, unnaturally loud in the darkness.

"What?" spluttered the Narrator.

"I'm dead, right? I walked around, talking to myself, and then I collapsed dead on the street, and then there was this woman named Mariella... And then I walked off the platform, I don't remember why, I think it was just because I could... And then I jumped off the set of stairs. And then I exploded inside a building. And then... And then..."

"No, Stanley, no, you aren't dead..."

Stanley's voice grew louder. "You _saw_ it, though, you saw it every single time..."

A pause. The voice hummed nervously. "I'm just the Narrator of your story, Stanley. The story has been about nothing but you this whole time." It was a subtle difference, but the Narrator's voice grew fainter around the end, wrapped in a thin layer of insecurity. When it came to the Narrator, Stanley noticed everything.

"You're not sure about that," Stanley murmured.

The Narrator said nothing.

"Who are you?" Stanley asked in a strained voice. "A ghost?"

"Merely a Narrator," the Narrator snapped. "Nothing more and nothing less."

And then the Narrator dissipated, into the darkness, leaving a thick trail of silence behind him.

.

.

Stanley woke up from his thoroughly weird dream.

_That was odd,_ he thought. _That was really, really odd._

As was his custom, the Narrator greeted Stanley by giving him an order. "Upon waking up to this bright, wonderful morning," the Narrator intoned, "Stanley decided to think about all the mistakes he had made in his life and fall into a depressed stupor for half an hour."

_Your face is half an hour. _

"What? I'm sorry, does that make any sense in that convoluted head of yours? Because the general populace agrees that it's complete gibberish."

_It's too early for comebacks that make sense_, Stanley thought glumly.

"Fine. Have it your way."

Stanley sighed, got out of bed, and ended up absentmindedly brushing his teeth while staring at himself in the mirror. He needed to write this down, he decided. The details of his dream were already escaping him. Soon, they would fall apart, and Stanley would have no way of remembering what he had said back there…

He had accidentally used too much toothpaste. White foam spilled in exaggerated clumps from the side of his mouth. Stanley's face, in the mirror, looked bedraggled and vaguely confused. _I said something about dying_, Stanley thought, _and there was Mariella, and a staircase, and jumping… jumping… what was it, again?_

Shoot. He had forgotten.

Stanley checked the clock.

Shoot. He was late, too.

.

.

.

When Stanley had first applied for his job, he was XX years old. His job interview involved several things, including a man in a red tie and a woman who asked him questions to make sure that he wasn't crazy. Stanley, of course, couldn't answer any of them. Voiceless, he had shaken his head and gestured toward his throat.

"He's mute," said the woman.

The man in the red tie asked about the nature of the disorder.

The woman opened a fat file folder and started shuffling through Stanley's records. "There's nothing wrong with his vocal cords." She picked up a paper between her fingertips and studied it carefully. "Apparently, it's a psychological thing."

Stanley nodded.

Interested, the man in the red tie passed Stanley a notepad and a pen. "Could you explain it?"

Stanley took the pen and wrote, hesitantly, in lowercase letters:

_i was never taught to speak up._

And it was at that moment that they had hired him.

The Narrator had remained silent for the entirety of the interview.

.

.

.

Stanley was late to work.

After throwing on the customary white dress shirt and black pants, he rushed to the company building. The atmosphere outside was distinctly urban, with cracked sidewalk pavement dividing the high-rise buildings from the streets.

Walking up the stairs to his office, Stanley suddenly remembered what had happened yesterday. Unless Mariella had filed a Facility Report, she probably thought that he was crazy.

"Stanley, Mariella filed the report yesterday," the Narrator said smugly.

Trying his best to stay civil, Stanley thought, _You're not supposed to talk in front of other people. Please stop getting me into trouble. _

The Narrator ignored him. "Were you trying to make an impression on her, by the way?"

_Screw staying civil_, thought Stanley. _It never works._

"Stanley recalled the two-point-five other romantic interests he had pursued throughout his life and decided to remain single for the rest of his meaningless life."

Stanley suddenly had the desire to punch the Narrator's nonexistent face.

.

He pulled open the door to his office floor, self-consciously running a hand through his uncombed hair. Several of his coworkers were already seated in their cubicles. The Narrator fell silent.

The Narrator only resumed the conversation when Stanley closed the door to the office.

"Before Stanley turned on the computer, a nearby heat-sensing explosive detonated, killing Stanley and badly wounding fifteen of his coworkers. As a result, a conspiracy group gained political traction in the country..."

Stanley rolled his eyes and turned on the computer. For several minutes he did nothing but press buttons as dictated by the computer monitor.

"Stanley? Are you ignoring me again? I worked hard on that story, you know..."

_You're an ass,_ thought Stanley.

"On the off-chance that your office did contain a dangerous explosive, ignoring yours truly would have surely led to your death."

_Wait, there isn't really a bomb here, is there?_

"No," supplied the Narrator helpfully. "It was hypothetical."

_You're not funny._

"Stanley was fat and ugly and really really stupid," the Narrator replied.

The Narrator wasn't being serious. Or, at least, Stanley had a strong conviction that he wasn't, and when it came to the Narrator, Stanley tended to trust his gut instincts. Conversations like this were familiar. In fact, they were quite possibly the most static, unchanging aspect of his life, more regular than going to the office or going back home or pushing Button Series A1-7 every thirty-five minutes.

Every day of every week of every month of every year, Stanley tried his best to piss off the Narrator, and he relished every moment of it.

. . .

He made it past the first three hours before the Facility got to him.

While Stanley was pressing the customary Button Series A1-7, an automated voice issued from the ancient sound system of his computer. Startled, Stanley hovered over the keyboard, shocked into stillness.

The voice sounded crackly, and, thought Stanley, vaguely terrifying.

"Employee 427," it said. "Employee 427, report to Mind Control Facility in fifteen minutes. This is a standard check-up of your mental health. Have a nice day."

Stanley stared at the computer monitor.

The Narrator spoke. "After a brief eternity, Stanley finally realized that the report which Mariella filed yesterday had been reviewed by the Facility Review Review Committee. This Committee had processed Mariella's report, altered her memory in a way that would maximize her potential happiness, and scheduled a time to investigate Employee 427."

Stanley closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead.

"Mariella's report, which stated that Employee 427 had interacted with a disembodied voice, clearly indicated that something was wrong either with Mariella or the employee."

_It's incredible how annoying you're being right now_, thought Stanley.

"Because of Mariella's sparkling track record, the Committee was 94% more likely to investigate Stanley first."

_Why didn't you tell me this earlier?_

The Narrator coughed. "I... wasn't aware of it. Earlier." If Stanley didn't know any better, he would have thought that the Narrator sounded guilty. But Stanley had established long ago that a colossal jerk like the Narrator was incapable of feeling any real emotion.

_Well,_ thought Stanley. _I'm screwed. I hope you're happy._

The Narrator said nothing.

Stanley opened his office door and mentally reviewed the dizzying, convoluted route to the Mind Control Facility. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Standard mental health checkups" didn't exist in this office building. Every employee was thoroughly screened beforehand to ensure the safest working environment possible.

As Stanley walked, the Narrator rambled, creating a slow procession of pseudo-logical bullcrap that Stanley found strangely comforting. "The concept of the standard checkup was invented just a few minutes ago so that their request would seem justified in the face of official action. Possibly, in order to lead Stanley to the facility without arousing suspicion, they had taken the opposite of the principle of surprise and counterinverted it so that..."

Stanley went up the stairs to his boss's office, and the Narrator shut up. The receptionist just inside the door gave Stanley a perfunctory glance before ushering him to the elevator room. On the wall hung a painting of a panda with a gun to its head and the caption: BUSINESS STRATEGY. Stanley tried not to feel bothered by it.

"Take it down three floors," the receptionist said in a practiced tone. And with that, she went back to her desk.

Stanley took the elevator down three floors. The Narrator hummed as he descended.

. . .

The elevator door opened, and the air was uncomfortably moist.

A brightly-colored sign: EMPLOYEE 427. REPORT TO FACILITY R000. REPORT TO FACILITY R00 0 REPORT RE

Facility R000. Not the Facility itself, but one of its smaller offshoots. A pneumatic sliding door opened as Stanley stepped near it, allowing him inside, and Stanley looked around with a strange kind of wonder. He had never been to R000. He had never met anyone who said they had been to R000.

_This building is full of mysteries_, Stanley thought.

A thin, clear voice. "Take him in for an examination."

A man and a woman were waiting for him. They might have been the same people who had conducted Stanley's job interview those years ago. Or maybe they were different people. Or maybe they weren't people at all. One of them wore a red tie and the other had some kind of crisp suit that seemed expensive. One of them said something and the other walked over and methodically placed a mask over Stanley's face, a mask, a plastic mask...

Immediately his vision was blurring. _Maybe a sedative,_ Stanley thought.

He was being led into another room. The Narrator was there. The Narrator was not there. Stanley was alive, Stanley was dead, Stanley was alive and the Narrator wasn't there, where was he, _where the hell are you_ -

Stanley thought...

Stanley thought...

.

.

He was in the middle of the street. Cars marched along the road like insects, and the streetlights blinked in rhythm. The lights turned red in the same moment, and the cars stopped in unison. Someone's horn yelled at him to get off the road.

Stanley got off the road. He looked around. He recognized the street.

He stood on the sidewalk. People streamed by him, set on their way to work. They did not have real faces, only vague, lumpy impressions of faces, with dark beady eyes and badly-molded cheekbones. One of them bumped into Stanley and made an apologetic noise before continuing on.

Was he in a dream?

Stanley closed his eyes, told himself to keep it together, and, feeling a lack of anything better to do, walked to the building where he worked. It was only a few blocks away.

He pulled open the door to his office floor and stopped.

All of his coworkers were gone.

Numb, unable to process what had just happened, Stanley stood in the room and rubbed at his eyes. This was just a bad dream. In a few moments, the alarm would sound, he would wake up, and it would just be the start of another normal day, another day, another day...

No, forget about that. He was going to approach this rationally. What had happened? Mariella had reported, to the Facility, that Employee 427 apparently talked with a disembodied voice in his spare time. Thinking that this was unusual, a committee had investigated the report, found that Employee 427 had caused the same problems in the past, and then called him down into R000, where... where... what came after that?

Stanley had a headache.

He sank to the ground, with his back leaning on one of the cubicle dividers, and Stanley felt utterly alone.


End file.
